by Andrew Brokos
Originally Published in Two Plus Two Internet Magazine, February 2008 issue
Most hold ‘em players are reasonably adept at profiling their opponents’ pre-flop play. They know how to classify other players on the continuums of tight to loose and passive to aggressive. When adjusted to reflect a player’s position and the action in front of him, these classifications can be very helpful in narrowing his range of starting hands and helping you figure out the best pre-flop play with the two cards you are holding.
Especially in deep-stacked big-bet games, however, knowing what your opponents are capable of doing after the flop is also critically important to playing your own holdings for maximum value. Frankly, pre-flop decisions are a lot simpler, and with the amount of published material in existence providing specific and detailed recommendations about which hands to play from which positions, most players are not making their biggest mistakes before the flop. Understanding specifically what an opponent will and will not do well on the flop can tell you a lot about how you ought to play against him before the flop.
This article will examine some common strategies for flop play and how they can be exploited. To be clear, by strategy I do not necessarily mean a sophisticated plan that an opponent has formulated and is consciously employing. But whether deliberate or not, most players do tend to play certain types of hands in predictable ways when faced with common flop situations, and that is all that I mean by strategy.
Since the focus is on characterizing and exploiting a particular opponent’s specific strategy, I will consider only heads up pots. And because they are the most common, I will further focus on no limit hold ‘em situations where one player has made a standard raise pre-flop and another has called, either in or out of position. In some situations the opponent will be the raiser, and in others he will be the caller, but the pre-flop action will always be the same. Lastly, I will generally assume stacks of sufficient depth that either player has room to raise a flop bet without committing himself to the pot.
The Continuation Bet
Since the publication of Harrington on Hold ‘Em, most NLHE players have learned that when they raise pre-flop and get only one or two callers, they can profitably take another stab at at least some flops that they miss. This does not mean, however, that most players execute this play particularly well. If you believe that one of your opponents is betting either too many or not enough flops after raising pre-flop, than this should affect your pre-flop strategy against him.
Specifically, against a player who doesn’t bluff often enough on the flop, you can widen your pre-flop calling range both in and out of position. This is because your marginal hands like draws, middle pairs, and top pairs with weak kickers, will face less pressure. When your hand is good, your opponent will often check the flop rather than put you to a difficult decision. If he does bet, you can more confidently fold your weaker made hands and count on better implied odds with your draws, since you know he is like to have a hand that can pay off when you hit.
However, with your strongest holdings, especially your big pairs, you should be more inclined to re-raise pre-flop rather than to flat call a raise. This is because your call is not likely to entice your passive opponent to bluff at flops that he misses.
Against players who make too many continuation bets, it will often be correct to tighten up and enter fewer pots against their pre-flop raises, especially when out of position. It will be very difficult for you to know where you stand post-flop with your marginal hands. If you are in position and are confident in your ability to outplay your opponent, then you can call more often than you would against a player who uses continuation bets more judiciously. This is because you are counting on picking up value on the flop by snapping off bluffs and making well-timed bluffs of you own.
You should also be more inclined to slowplay strong pre-flop holdings against this opponent, especially when stacks are somewhat shallow. Big pairs are virtually guaranteed to earn an extra bet on the flop, but even unpaired hands like AK and AQ that you would usually re-raise can become trapping hands. Although you’ll sometimes get bluffed off of the best hand on the flop, you’ll be able to call unimproved on more benign flops and when you do hit, you’ll be a much larger favorite against his range than you would be putting the same money in pre-flop.
Checking for Pot Control
It may be strange to talk about checking as part of a poker player’s “arsenal”. After all, everybody checks; it isn’t exactly a fancy play. But the truth is that not everyone is capable of checking when they flop something. Many players are so excessively concerned about getting drawn out on that they will always bet when they think their hands is best. What they don’t realize is that they may be setting themselves up for disaster by folding out hands that might have given action on a later street and building big pots against hands that have them smoked.
Against such opponents, hands such as suited connectors that will often flop draws go down in value whether or not you are in position. You should be less inclined to call raises with them pre-flop, because you will often face a bet that you can’t call when you flop a draw. You can call more often, however, with hands that can flop strong, such as pocket pairs, since it will be easy to win a big pot when you hit your set. You can also mix in more flat calls with big pairs and big Aces, since you’ll win more from dominated hands like top pair with a worse kicker than you would against an opponent who sometimes checked those hands.
If your opponent is capable of keeping the pot manageable by checking something like QQ on a K54 flop, then you need to make the opposite adjustments. You can play more suited connectors, since you’ll often get to see a turn card that may improve your hand to two pair or better. However, your implied odds will be worse with small pairs, since your savvy opponent will often avoid losing his entire stack when you flop a set.
Checking to Give Up
This move is closely related to the ability to make continuation bets on the right boards and with the right frequency. Some players don’t understand which flop textures are more likely to hit the pre-flop caller than the raiser and will blithely fire away with AK on a 678 flop. Those are the guys who make too many continuation bets.
Against opponents who are capable of giving up when they whiff boards like this, there are some adjustments you should make pre-flop. Your suited connectors are going to be less valuable, since your opponent will often give up on the flops that hit you hardest. Broadway hands can get some additional value from any position, however, because you can often steal with a worse nothing when your opponent does not make a continuation bet on a coordinated flop.
Floating
Let’s now consider some situations where you are contemplating a pre-flop open raise instead of facing one. You probably have at least a rough idea of the range of hands that you can profitably open raise from various positions. What you may not realize, however, is that built into your idea of what will be profitable pre-flop is the implicit assumption that you will gain some value by making successful use of the flop continuation bet. In other words, one of the reasons that you open 97s from one of the button is that even when you are called by better hands, you will recover some of that lost value by bluffing certain flops.
This means that you need to tighten up pre-flop when a player who doesn’t give up easily is liable to call your raise. Of course you cannot see into the future, but if that player is on the button, you can assume he is somewhat likely to call your raise and thereby deny you the valuable bluffing opportunity you are counting on. It will be much harder for him to call you light, or float, on the flop from out of position. That means that you don’t have to worry as much if he is in the blinds, but you do have to tighten up a bit when he is on the button.
An exception is if he does not defend well against multi-street bluffs and you are good at making them, but such a tactic is beyond the scope of this article.
Bluff Raising
Although an out of position float is not a particularly threatening prospect, a check-raise bluff can similarly dampen the value of your flop continuation bet. That means that you need to tighten up against a player who is capable of bluff raising your flop bet whether or not you are liable to have position on him post-flop.
But the holdings you should be less inclined to play are the weaker broadway hands, which will often get bluffed out when they miss and face difficult decisions when they hit. Unlike floating, bluff raising gives you a new opportunity: the three-bet semi-bluff. Suited and connected hands that will often flop draws gain value against players who like to bluff raise on the flop, because you can shove all in with substantial fold equity and 30% pot equity or more when you get called.
Conclusion
There are two larger concepts to be gleaned from these specific examples. The first is that embedded in your idea of which hands you can play for a raise pre-flop are some assumptions about how you will gain or lose value on the flop. Explicitly considering some likely flop situations in the context of specific reads you have on an opponent can help you to make better pre-flop decisions.
Second, you can often call even looser in position than you otherwise would when you know that the pre-flop raiser is prone to make specific mistakes on the flop. Position magnifies your ability to recognize and exploit those mistakes.